Shanghai ANE Logistics has bagged a USD 300 million investment from Centurium Capital, which is also the main backer of Luckin Coffee, the company announced Monday via its WeChat account.
ANE Logistics, which was founded in 2010, had collected USD 370 million prior to this new investment, according to CB Insights. The firm, which ships small loads of freights, such as parcels ordered on e-commerce platforms, raised USD 150 million in its Series E round led by CDH Investments in January 2016. The company also raked in USD 170 million in Series D led by Carlyle Group and joined by Goldman Sachs. Warburg Pincus and Sequoia Capital China are among its early investors.
ANE chairman Wang Yongjun said that new funds will be spent on digitalizing its operations to increase efficiency and to grab a larger market share. He added that the company aims to transport goods weighted above 100,000 tons daily, up from nearly 40,000 tons at the end of December and to ascend as a company valued more than RMB 100 billion (USD 14.3 billion). The company did not disclose its valuation following this new funding.
ANE has established a robust national delivery network through self-operated sorting centers, contracted line-haul trucks, and franchised pick-up-and-delivery stores. The company currently has about 20,000 franchised stores nationwide, covering 96% of the country’s townships and rural area.
Chen Weihao, partner of Centurium Capital, commented that ANE is a leader in the less-than-truckload trucking segment and has been consolidating the market by leveraging on its franchise model and information technologies while offering logistics solutions to ten million goods vendors in China.
Chen added that ANE could enhance its leading position, aided by the fresh funds from Centurium Capital.
In the less-than-truckload sector in which ANE operates, there are already multiple large players such as SF Express, which believes the market is as large as RMB 1 trillion (USD 143 billion) in China. SF Express, which mainly serves premium clients in large cities, booked RMB 89.7 billion (USD13.07 billion) for its delivery business alone in 2018, up 27% year-on-year, according to its annual report.